


Fireworks

by Elfy (elfowlgirl)



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6781909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfowlgirl/pseuds/Elfy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of it/I just got too lonely, lonely, whoa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks

Each breath wracks his body, on leaning on his hands and knees in the once-green grass. He glances up at her, and the look in his eyes that was once unnatural and gruesome seems _more_ \- feral, bestial, consumed by wrath and rage besides. Like a spark, like a burnout, it fades - and then, a moment of clarity blossoms.

"He's going to be m-mad you never asked me to surrender." The briefest beginnings of a laugh that turns into a cough, blood and vitriol trailing from his lips. “He’s going to be so, so mad.”

"I told you it didn't have to come to this." She's drained, exhausted, running what little magic left she has over wounds that need to _heal, dammit, c'mon you can do this._ Bodies litter the ground around them, Thog not quite willing to take his pistol's aim off the assassin. She wonders where Xin and Horaven are. If they know, if they’re coming to help, if they care about the wounded boy in the grass before her.

He looks like a boy. She’s certain he’s not, not with _that_ look in his eye.

Another wry smile. Despite it all, Zalvetta's face seems the antithesis of Ashe's - calm instead of fearful, patient instead of panicked, eyes almost dyed red against the sun's light overhead. The glade is cool, eerily silent as even the wind seems to have died. The air is thick and foul, stained with blood, tasting bitter and sour on Ashe’s tongue.

Ashe has a hole in her leg, strength worn down through combat and magical energy all but depleted.

Zalvetta, on the other hand, has three bullet holes in various spots - including his side - a broken jaw, a bleeding scar that runs raggedly from his eyebrow to his chin and a magic-induced burn that seems to envelop the entirety of his leg. Somehow, none of it shows on his face - as if the pain is a daydream, a waking nightmare, to be forgotten the second another thought flickers through his mind. Let it not be said that Zalvetta would go down without a fight.

Even against death itself.

Tears pool in his eyes, beginning to trail down his cheeks and washing thin lines of blood off his face. "Someone like you... Not even _him_ . Not even Xin, not even H-Horaven, just a damn white-haired f-foreigner with too much _heart_." Another bout of coughing drives his head into the grass, stray strands of blond hair shaking loose from its ties.

"I hate you," he spits. "I hate all of you. Always so _certain_. Death, d-damnation, or rebirth. Who knows what waits for me."

Ashe can barely spare an uncertain glance. Thog hovers by her and she leans back, half against him and half supporting herself with what little energy she has left.

Zalvetta grits his teeth, pausing as his breath catches hard in his chest. He manages a shaky arm forward, then another, along the grass. Whatever he's reaching for, amidst the dozens of scattered weapons, is uncertain. He collapses before he gets a chance to grab one. He fights for breath, then a few more words, each coming thinner than the last.

He glances up, gaze catching Ashe's, and suddenly seems alight with passion, with emotion, with loss.

"I'm sorry," he manages. All at once, it catches up with him. For the first time, he sounds uncertain, voice wavering. He sounds _scared._ Everything that seems to make him _Zalvetta_ vanishes - the bitterness, the certainty, the ferocity. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I d-didn’t m-mean...”

He winces and any of the building tension left in him is gone. The fire in his eyes sparks, and, just as quickly, fades.

The assassin Zalvetta dies in the grass, his own blood pooling with that of those he had slain. Though as Ashe leaves, Thog supporting her, she sees the briefest glance of _something_ beside him - maybe a trick of the light, or a dancing spark, or the beginnings of the faintest wisp of life.


End file.
